VietnamJC.com Final Page. 
Tennessee left, Joe Cummings background, Max Worthington right. Returning from our mission outfitted with traveling basic load, for a presumed one day mission: Weapon, 23 magazines of ammo [3 bandoleers of 7 mags each, one mag in the weapon, and 1 "fast grab" mag in a pocket], helmet, gas mask, some grenades [smoke and fragmentation], water and maybe one meal. Our company was chosen for this mission and we flew some distance to a new area of operations to run it. After securing this hill [which had it's top freshly blown off], we were joined by a Huey with 4 or 5 men asserting to be from military intelligence [M.I.]. The C.O. selected our squad to carry them down to a local village while he and the company secured the hill. We pulled security for our visitors while they conducted their business with the villagers. We then carried this girl back to the firebase and the M.I. guys took her out with them on their helicopter... If I ever knew why all this happened, I don't remember. [One person suggested possible Vietcong ties and another thought maybe medical help, but I'm pretty sure I would have remembered if I had known either to be the case.] Other than very occasionally passing some of them on a trail (and I think that happened only during the couple of weeks we pulled security for the bridge between Base Camp and Dak To), this mission was the most involvement I had with South Vietnamese civilians. It seemed our company and platoon got selected for a lot of dangerous jobs. It made me think at the time someone up the chain was trying to get me killed. Retrospectively, I like to think it was becasue our platoon was viewed as being willing to get the job done, and capable.
Joe Cummings left, then Chris Duar,* and Jim Spearman front and 2nd from right. Many of us who took pictures had our family make two copies and send one back so we could trade or give them to others to send home. Don't know where I got this picture as it was a different format from my camera, but I sent it home as a short timer marked "39 days and a wakeup". Then, 40 days plus travel later, it was back home trying to return to the life I was so rudely yanked away from. Someone commented there was a lot of missing shirts for a military unit. We were in a combat unit that never saw anyone except NVA soldiers. It was hot!!! I never polished a boot and no one ever mentioned the dress code or worried about who was wearing a shirt. We did stay shaved and clean, however, and our weapons were oiled and spotless inside. One man told me his unit wore their underwear as shorts trying to beat the heat. We always had our loaded weapon in hand or at arms length and needed to be ready to fight. Missing shirt maybe, but short pants wouldn't have been practical for us. *[I was told Chris Duar took two sperate hits in a firefight on Mar 11, 1969, as he manned the M-60 machine gun. I thought I remembered him still being in the company when I rotated, so I'm not sure... He was not on the KIA list so if he was hit he survived.]
With two mentioned exceptions, all the men pictured on this website served with Co. C, 3rd of the 12th, 4th Div. and during my Vietnam tour overlapping 1968 & 1969. The site is for them and for my family and theirs. I here link something different, but still very personal. Of my four best friends in high school, all four of us got a paid tour of Vietnam. Don Smith was the best of them for several formative years. So, I here link a video Don did reflecting his tour of duty in Vietnam: DonVietnamHD.mp4 [When I talked to Don about posting his video, he mentioned he served on an Airbase and was not a combat soldier. Anyone dragged half way around the world from their home, and dropped into a combat zone, is a combat soldier! Don kept the helicopters flying.]
My little daughter Amanda, born after my return from the Nam, constructed a collage (which included the above page) with some of my childhood and teenage pictures in a photo album she made up to describe the life of her daddy; "before Amanda Kay." (Where the dog came from, I don't remember, nor do I remember what became of it. It was obviously not practical for us to keep a puppy. The chopper crews sometimes took a break on the hill. Maybe the dog was with one of them. He seemed to like my freshly cleaned rifle.) I guess when little Amanda thought of her dad's Vietnam days, she liked thinking of him with a puppy. In harmony with the Bible proverb: The love of a little girl for her daddy is the fifth thing "too wonderful" for me!!! [Pro 30:18-19]
